Kevin's Ramblings…

My flight arrived into Calgary a little earlier than scheduled on Tuesday night, about 9:50pm (mountain time) as opposed to 10:15.  Was home by 10:45.  Asleep by 11.

Not a bad flight at all.  Fairly uneventful.  The airline (Air Canada) allowed me to take two pieces of carry on luggage on the plane.  I was expecting to have to check the second one and pay an additional $20 so that was good.  The bad news, with all of the additional “stuff” that I had packed, my suitcase was over weight by a few kilograms.  Now, I could have left it and paid an additional $75, but, I don’t want to have to do that now, do I?

So, everything that was in the two front pockets of the suitcase was stuffed, jammed and crammed into the various compartments of the backpack that I was using.  It then resembled more of a small suitcase as opposed to a backpack.  It also likely weighed 20 pounds.  Anyway, since they let you bring the same amount on the plane, why did they really care if the suitcase was over weight?  I mean, I didn’t leave anything at the airport, it all made it to Calgary so I can only presume it flew with me.  Oh well.  At any rate, the person who checked me in at the Air Canada counter was very polite and helpful – thank you.

I watched the new Star Trek movie, Into Darkness on the flight.  It was a great way to kill more than half of the flying time.  It was also a pretty good movie.  It took a bit to get used to the new cast but they are pretty good.  I am looking forward to the next movie which I am sure is already in the planning stages at least.

So, now I have a few days in Calgary with little to do.

I retrieved my dogs from their “resort”, they were happy to see me.  Blondie was jumping all over – I think she may have thought that I abandoned her there.  This was their first visit to this particular resort and I think they enjoyed it.  I hope so, they are going back on Sunday for a couple of nights.  I had an upgrade to my Telus internet services (up to 25mbps down, 2.5mbps up) and had my washing machine looked at – something is wrong with the door lock (it is a front load) and if it can’t lock, it can’t wash.  They need a part so hopefully he’ll be able to come back next week.  I can still use it, it is difficult to lock though.

The rest of yesterday was relaxing, for both myself and the dogs.  They are tired from their 10 days in the kennel.  I am tired from long days at the conference and then visiting with friends.

Nothing planned for either today or tomorrow really.  I have done a bunch of house cleaning and re-organized my living room – I flipped it 180 degrees, the way I have always wanted it actually.  Still have some stuff to do today with it, I am just taking a break now.  Yeah, that’s it.

Saturday I am hanging with my little brother.  We are doing that event at the airport and then a tour over the city – should be cool.  The weather is supposed to cooperate, this time.  We will see.  Sunday, Zeus and Blondie return to Country Club Pet Resort and I head for Banff. I am planning on playing the tourist role Sunday afternoon.  Should be fun and a good way to end my week off.

Summer is definitely over and Fall is turning quickly to winter.  I am sure that the snow will fly in the next couple of weeks.  Oh well, I still love it.

I really don’t go on exotic vacations.  I don’t particularly care for the heat and humidity of a tropical island and I am not a huge fan of sand so laying on a beach is not my idea of a good time.  My sister has tried, unsuccessfully, for years, to get me to go to Cuba with her and her husband.  No interest.  At all.

I suppose if I did go I would just sit under an umbrella drinking all day and all night.  I suppose that wouldn’t be too bad.

Speaking of drinking all day and all night, I have not had a day where I have not had a drink in the last week.  I guess it takes quantities of alcohol to keep me going on my return trips to Ontario.  Amaretto is my drink of choice.  My buddies back in the day tried to get me to drink beer but they were not successful in their attempts.  I do not like it.  At all.  I will drink pretty much anything else that is offered.  I can go for a bottle or two of wine, red, white, doesn’t matter.  I don’t really care for hard stuff, scotch, vodka, etc., but when mixed, they aren’t too bad.

I don’t drink all that much.  I did enough of that when I was a teen and in my early 20’s to last a lifetime.  I had a fairly good job when I was in high school and spent a lot of that money down at the Port Mansion in Port Dalhousie.  Oh well, a friend worked there so I guess I helped put him through school.

Anyway, back to vacations – I seem to have gotten side-tracked there.

I am now on vacation.  I don’t go back into the office for another week still and it seems that I have already been off for a week because of the conference. My vacation for this year is spending a weekend back in St. Catharines for Thanksgiving.  I have visited some of my favourite restaurants, The Mandarin, Duff’s Pizzeria, today we are heading to what we call “The Greasy Spoon” which is actually Golden Grill. I caught a Brock Badgers baseball game and they came back for the win.  All in all, it is pretty relaxing actually.

Today, I am making my nearly world famous Crock-Pot roast for dinner – it is Crock-Potting away as I type this.  Thanksgiving dinner will be tomorrow – turkey and all the fixings.  I think we might actually catch a movie which is a rare event for me to be sure.

Zeus and Blondie are in their new Pet Resort back in Calgary.  I will pick them up on Wednesday morning.

Not a bad week off at all.

Well, the conference up in Collingwood was a good one.  Excellent rooms, awesome food and really good presentations, with the odd exception of course.

We did some fun activities as well.  Our team building event on Tuesday afternoon was some sort of scavenger hunt – my team came in second place.  Not bad, out of 10 teams as well and we only lost by 1 point.

On Tuesday night I joined a bunch of co-workers for some drinks in one of the local bars in the Blue Mountain Village.  Good times around for sure.  While we were bar hopping, I received a notification that the Calgary office was down.  I didn’t take much note because this will happen from time to time and typically, it will be back up within minutes.

Well, not this time apparently.  About an hour later, I received a second alert.  So, I did a check to ensure that the power was still on and it was – so that is a good sign.  Nothing else that I can really physically check, I am over 3000km away.  So, it is about 11:30pm Eastern so I decided to call one of the office admin people to see if she’d be able to go into the office early the next day, presuming that the issue wasn’t resolved over night.  No problem there, she’d be in by 5:30am or so.

I started work at 6:30am and the first thing I checked was the Calgary office status – still down.  Not good.  Telus had not informed us that it was a Telus issue, so something else was going on.

RD got in and I had her do some testing.  Looks like the main switch in our server room has failed.  The switch essentially connects all of the computers in the office to the servers and the internet.  So, we place a service call with Avaya and they will ship us a new switch – it will arrive sometime later that evening.  I contact the IT guy up in Edmonton, he didn’t attend the conference and let him know that he needs to get to Calgary as soon as he can.

Well, long story a bit shorter (perhaps), he’s able to get everyone in the office back up and running – he temporarily moves connections on the 6th floor to the two other switches and then moves the now empty switch back to 5.  The office admin person meets the courier at 11:30pm to receive the new switch.

My co-worker in the office was in today – I am on vacation.  The replacement switch can’t be connected, the port that we need to connect to is damaged.  They will be shipping yet another switch.  The office is still good, so that isn’t too bad.

The replacement switch will now be delivered on Tuesday morning.  I won’t be back in the office until the following week, not even back in Alberta until Tuesday evening so I won’t be doing anything further on it.

The rest of the conference was good.  The presentations, for the most part, were very informative and we learned a thing or two.  The team building activity was great.  Did I mention the zip-line or the roller coaster?

We wrapped things up on Thursday afternoon and made a mostly uneventful trip back to the airport in Toronto.  I figured that I was going to  be taking a taxi from the airport to my Aunt’s place and then we were going out for a family dinner.  Well, the driver offered to take me pretty well to my Aunt’s place, it was on his way back to his garage.  Thank you – saved me about $60 in a taxi fare.

Dinner was good – Red Lobster.  Had a good time sort of visiting with the family and we returned to Niagara.  I have a few days to get in touch with friends and do some hanging out.  Should be a good couple of days.

I called the Pet Resort where Zeus and Blondie are staying – I am told that both dogs are enjoying themselves.  I am looking forward to picking them up on Wednesday morning.  Their stay will last 10 days which is the longest, by far, that I have left them – I will be happy to see them and I am sure they will be happy to see me.

A few days after I get them, I am taking them back as I have to provide support for a conference in Banff and am staying over night.  What can ya do, that is the price of working I guess.

Anyway, I plan on enjoying myself for the rest of my stay in Ontario but am looking forward to getting back into the routine in Alberta.

Have fun, I am sure I will.